Marketer Patricia Gottesman Leaves Cablevision
Executive Vice President Concludes 28-Year Stint
By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 3/31/2008 4:35:00 PM
Executive vice president Patricia Gottesman has left Cablevision Systems Corp., where she spent 28 years, lastly developing new interactive commerce applications, the company confirmed Monday.
"Pat has decided to leave Cablevision after a magnificent 28-year career," senior vice president for media and community relations Charles Schueler said.
Friday (March 28) was her last day and she told colleagues she would be working elsewhere by May, people outside the company but familiar with her departure said.
The company said it had nothing to say about replacing her but that it remained committed to digital marketing and commerce.
Until a year ago, Gottesman was executive VP of product management and marketing, responsible for the management and marketing of all telecommunications products including traditional cable and the full suite of advanced digital services.
Cablevision introduced an $89.95 triple-play bundle of digital cable, telephone and high-speed Internet in 2004 while she was in that role. Instead of sparking a price war as some analysts feared, it helped lead the company to industry-leading penetration levels for all three products.
And even in early months, the average price subscribers actually paid for the bundle was $110, indicating customers were buying higher-priced digital tiers.
A year ago Gottesman was tapped to run a new Digital Marketing & Commerce group, working with the company’s ad-sales arm on developing new interactive advertising opportunities.
She told Multichannel News in September her group was working on electronic commerce applications, such as purchasing products using the TV remote after watching a commercial for the product. She cited Cablevision’s success with allowing cable customers to add subscription video-on-demand services via remote.
“As an example,” she said then, “if I'm watching a commercial for Dove soap, and toward the end it launches into a separate marketing plug for a new product from Dove-skin location—I can press the remote and in a minimum number of clicks, maybe two, and I can get a sample of the new Dove skin lotion sent to my home.”
Jonathan Hargis, senior VP of marketing and advertising, succeeded Gottesman as Cablevision's top marketer and last week was elected to CTAM’s board of directors.
John Trierweiler, whom Gottesman hired away from Time Warner Cable in 2006, is Cablevision’s senior VP of consumer product management.
Gottesman began at Cablevision producing shows at a local-origination channel. She worked in public affairs, franchising and operations management, running Cablevision systems in New Jersey and on Long Island, N.Y., and then overseeing the company’s former U.S. Cable subsidiary.
In the mid-1990s, when she oversaw consumer marketing, Cablevision launched the “Optimum TV” brand that now encompasses video, Internet and voice services.
